“This is amazing!” Twilight said running across the lab with a clipboard levitating behind her. She was gone before Scootaloo could respond, from still sitting there up on the impromptu examination table. Rainbow Dash was still staring at Scootaloo with a shocked detachment, that was making her feel very uncomfortable. Was her mouth good, or bad?
“So... my mouth looks... good?” Scootaloo asked. She asked Rainbow Dash, since Twilight was way too busy to respond to anything. Archer wasn’t saying anything at all, just hiding behind Rainbow Dash’s legs from Twilight’s rapid movements.
“I dunno, kid,” Rainbow Dash said, still looking a little lightheaded from what she saw earlier, “It’s I mean, it’s a mouth.”
“This is revolutionary!” Twilight added, running the other direction and carting a bulky boxlike black machine.
“Oh um, OK...” Scootaloo said, too self conscious to ask further.
“Do you even have a throat?” Dash asked anyway.
“Um... sometimes?” Scootaloo shrugged.
“Please stand in front of the scanner,” Twilight said, pulling Scootaloo over to the black box machine. Scootaloo looked curiously over the edge as a projection screen on the side showed an outline of her with her bones highlighted in bright white.
“Fascinating...” Twilight said, then pulled the machine and ran off with it back to where she wheeled it out from.
“I don’t know many ponies who can open their mouth that big,” said Rainbow Dash trying to sound casual about it.
“It kind of has to, to get the filly out,” Scootaloo said in kind of a daze. She was still in shock about all this.
“Does it hurt when that happens?” Dash asked wincing a bit.
Scootaloo looked up thoughtfully, hesitantly saying, “Well it—”
“Bite down on this,” Twilight said sticking a thermometer in Scootaloo’s mouth. Scootaloo slid the end of it under her tongue, like any good filly would.
“Ith doesnth rearry—” Scootaloo started but Twilight cut in again, while scribbling down some notes.
“Don’t talk or it’ll mess up the temperature reading.”
A minute later, Twilight said “OK you can talk again!” pulled out the thermometer and looked at it, jotting down the temperature and wandering away mumbling to herself.
“It’s really gross and s-scary, but it doesn’t really hurt,” Scootaloo clarified, adding “You’ve eaten so much that you threw up before, right?”
“I was a filly once too, ya know,” Dash said.
“So, it’s like that, you know?” Scootaloo said hopefully.
Rainbow Dash shook her head. Twilight rolled Scootaloo onto her back, then grabbed Scootaloo’s front left hoof and started wrapping a blood pressure cuff around it. What, did she raid the hospital or something? Where does she get all this stuff?
Archer climbed up on Dash’s back again. She was clearly appreciating the novelty of having an older pony to do that with. Dash didn’t so much as twitch, much less shove her down like most ponies would. No, Dash just kept her cool, saying to Scootaloo, “Yeah, but you practically folded in half when you made Archer here. She flew like three feet! Isn’t your diaphragm sore?”
Scootaloo blushed, laying a hoof on her round orange belly. “I guess I’m just used to it?” She lifted her hoof so Twilight could take off the blood pressure cuff, making blood pump through the hoof strongly to catch up. Before Scootaloo could roll onto her hooves again, Twilight pinned her down and stuck a cold stethoscope against her chest. She flailed a little despite herself, but settled down to let Twilight listen to her heart.
Archer was still watching Scootaloo being examined, from Rainbow Dash’s back, when Dash turned her head and started talking at her instead of Scootaloo.
“What about you, Archer?” Dash asked, turning her head to the little blue pony. “You got awfully quiet all of a sudden.”
Archer shrunk back a little. “I... I don’t really need to talk when Scootaloo can just say everything,” she said shyly.
“So what?” Dash said challengingly, “You’re your own pony, aren’t you?” A beat. “You are your own pony, aren’t you?”
“I don’t... know?” Archer said, shivering uncomfortably at the attention. “What do you mean?”
“Well it’s like,” Dash frowned, “I mean—” she said, then looked down thoughtfully. “You’re a real pony, right?”
“No,” Archer said sadly. “Real ponies don’t throw each other up. I’m just a fake pony.”
“That’s... not what I meant,” Dash said, holding a hoof to her forehead. Then she looked at the hoof and glanced back at Archer.
Rainbow Dash let the pastern of her foreleg hang down, pointing the hoof at her own face. “Looks like a nose, doesn’t it?” She said idly to the filly sitting up on her rump. The hoof turned to face Archer.
Archer had no idea, just staring at the hoof from Dash’s back, wondering what she was doing. Then Rainbow Dash started to waggle the hoof in the air, saying in a really funny voice, “Hi I’m Hoofy the hoof! I look like I’m really talking!” waggling once for each syllable. Archer stared as Dash’s hoof continued to waggle at Dash’s face while Dash said in that weird voice, “Who is this pretty filly? Why don’t you introduce me?”
“Archer!” Dash said in her normal voice, “This is Hoofy the hoof.” Then in her weird voice as the hoof waggled, “Hi I’m Hoofy. Nice to meet you, Archer!”
“Why are you—” Archer started to say, but then she realized she was asking the hoof. That made her giggle. It did look like it was talking.
“What was that Hoofy?” Dash asked, and she wiggled the hoof next to her ear. “Hoofy wants to know if you think she’s a real pony!”
“Nooo,” Archer said grinning and turning her chin down, “She’s just a hoof!”
“But I sound like a real pony!” waggled Hoofy.
“That’s just Rainbow Dash making funny voices!” Archer giggled.
“But my nose wiggles, just like a real pony!” waggled Hoofy.
“That’s not a nose it’s a hoof!” Archer crowed accusingly.
“No, no Hoofy,” Dash said in her normal voice addressing her own hoof. “The reason you’re not a real pony is because I can make you do... this!” and she started waving her hoof around crazily while saying in her ‘Hoofy’ voice,
“Aaaarghbobobblbl I cannot stop spinning around because I am just a hoof and I say whatever Rainbow Dash wants! Take all my money! Rainbow Dash is best pony! Arrrglbobblbl!”
It was about then that Rainbow Dash noticed that Twilight had Scootaloo hooked up to some kind of full body testing frame, with her four hooves clamped securely on spring loaded weight measures. Twilight wasn’t measuring Scootaloo’s muscle strength anymore though, because she was too busy staring at Rainbow Dash in shock. It was a good thing Scootaloo was restrained too, because the little orange filly was laughing her head off.
“Uh,” Dash relaxed her hoof, “Heh,” and blushing, set it firmly on the ground. “Aaaanyway, what I mean is you’re always a real pony if you can do something yourself, without another pony making you do it.” She cast Twilight a calm look, and noticed Twilight hadn’t stopped gaping yet.
“Shut up, it worked when I was a filly!” Dash huffed at Twilight angrily, blushing harder and then looked away pointedly.
Twilight’s gape turned into an eyebrow raised smile as she said, “Whatever you say, Rainbow Dash,” in a low drawl. Twilight turned back to Scootaloo, trying to calm her hiccupping laughter down enough to get a reliable reading. Archer just wanted to know what was so funny. Would she really laugh that hard, if she were Scootaloo? Maybe it looked different from the table, than when you’re on Rainbow Dash’s back? And why was it making her feel better about herself?
“OK Archer, your turn!” Twilight said brightly, tapping the table while Scootaloo jumped down and scampered away, with a white stick poking out of her mouth. Archer immediately stopped feeling better about herself and shrank back, clutching Rainbow Dash defensively.
“Aww, c’mon Twilight,” Dash whined, “This is boring! Can’t you speed up the process at all?”
“We’ve only been here for a half hour, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said in a hurt tone, “And besides, now that I have a test battery established it should go fairly quickly the second time.”
“Well, you heard her Archer,” Rainbow said, walking over and giving a hip shake that tried to toss Archer right onto the table. “Alley-oop?” Of course Archer wasn’t leaving Rainbow Dash’s hindquarters come love nor money. She clung to Rainbow’s butt tenaciously. She didn’t want to be the center of attention. She didn’t even know what Twilight was doing. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone? She wanted to stay with Rainbow Dash!
“Twilight, she won’t get off,” Dash whined.
“Come on Archer, it’s alright,” Twilight cooed at Rainbow Dash’s butt. “I just have to take your temperature and some things. There’s nothing to worry about!
“...what things?” Archer said quietly.
Twilight paused to digest that, then leaned forward again and said, “Look, why don’t I walk you through it? I’ll carefully explain each step for you and make sure you’re okay with it.”
“Uggggh,” Dash complained rolling her eyes.
“Hush,” said Twilight snippily, looking at Archer for confirmation.
“You promise?” Archer said standing up.
“I promise,” Twilight confirmed.
Uneasily Archer left Rainbow Dash’s back, hopping the short distance to the table.
“This is a Nuclear Magical Scanner,” Twilight said rolling up the black box device. “It uses pulses of vim to take pictures of your insides. See? The default setting is density, and here you can see that the most dense part of my hoof is my bones.”
“Wow,” Archer said in a captivated tone, looking over the edge of the machine, and waving her own hoof in the scanning area.
“I can’t believe that worked,” grumbled Rainbow Dash.
“Worked for me as a filly,” Twilight said chirpily with her nose in the air, cantering the cart around to aim the device at Archer’s side squarely. “Now this is the musculature viewer,” she continued to explain, turning dials on the machine while Archer watched her own insides in rapt fascination, while Dash just felt kind of annoyed by all this.
But it wasn’t until Twilight got her exam completed that she got really annoying.
Dash was just resting her eyes a little, when she snorted awake as Twilight exclaimed “And your olmeric elacium levels are geopartial indicating severential tartaric noeprene parameters!”
Rainbow saw the two fillies were both on the table now, as Twilight addressed them with a presentation pointer moving animatedly around her easel, at an angle facing away from Dash. The pegasus mare couldn’t see whatever was on it, not that that would have helped to have been able to see what was on it, knowing Twilight.
“The tartaric noeprene parameter or TNP correlates positively with your genetic propensity for endochital osteoblastosis which confirms my theory of protoequinal differential eschatology...” Twilight continued as Archer stared uncomprehendingly, her hoof coming over her drooping mouth as she fought back a yawn. Scootaloo’s eyes were sliding shut, but she forced them open every few seconds, sitting on her haunches with her head hanging low.
Somewhere in the middle of “aripolethial misculantarangeal telosympathified margarblathiony—” Rainbow Dash wrapped her hoof around Twilight’s shoulder, jerking her away from the fillies and whispering harshly to her,
“Stop using big words.”
Scootaloo and Archer both immediately heaved huge sighs of relief.
Twilight whined, “But how else can I precipiate calamnial alugorathonica—”
“Twilight!”
“But—”
“What are you even doing?” Dash said, holding the purple pony’s shoulders at arm’s length.
“I’m... presenting my findings...” Twilight said, in a tone like Dash just took away her favorite dolly and replaced it with an eviction notice, her lower lip quivering.
“Well do it with smaller words!” Dash said, letting Twilight go, “These are uh...” She looked at Scoots and Archer. “How old are you fillies, again?”
“10,” Scootaloo said looking at Dash hopefully.
“2,” Archer said, adding, “...almost,” after a pause.
“What? No way! You are not!” Dash said, striding around Twilight to face the fillies. “You’ve both got to be at least 21 years old. These are 21 year old fillies, Twilight. Use smaller words.”
Twilight shook with effort before snapping out, “...fine! The multico- the... the many box h-holding surange su sweet box touch inside holds nice fine cold eat build many moon watch go fall red to pink three scissors cow beep moo...”
Where did you even get those crazy numbers?” Dash asked the fillies while Twilight continued her monosyllabic speech, the agitated unicorn not really addressing the fillies at all anymore, as her eyes slowly started to drift in different directions.
“Numbers?” Archer said cluelessly.
“Yeah, you can’t be telling ponies that you’re only 2,” Rainbow said. “And 10? How could you possibly be 10?” she said to Scootaloo. “Do you just... you were never a baby or something?”
Scoots looked back, with a flash of fear and shame, saying “Oh, right, uh... I was... I mean I was a baby I... think. I mean I’m older than 10, but I was different ponies before. It took a lot of um... throwing up,” she gulped, “Before I came out.”
“Wait, so how many of you are there?” Dash asked unthinkingly. She then blushed and said, “I mean, if you’re okay with talking about it, that is I don’t want to uh, how many times have you uh, puked up a filly?”
Scootaloo started tapping her hoof on the ground. Was she... counting? At that point Rainbow started to notice that Twilight was getting sort of... agitated... or... something?
“... hard bonk loud choo choo mouse eat boo happy cow ball fat SING WHEEP NI BONG–”
“Twilight!” Dash yelled, wrapping a hoof around her shoulder and jerking her off to the side again. “This is even worse!”
Twilight looked at her frantically.
“Stop using small words,” Dash hissed to her.
“Oh thank Celestia,” Twilight said her, eyes rolling up in relief.
Behind them, Archer spoke up, saying “What comes after 33?”
“A hundred,” Scoots answered offhoovedly and Archer kept on counting but then Dash spun from Twilight’s side and dashed over, interrupting them in a panicked tone saying,
“There are a hundred of you out there?!”
“Oh, no no!” Archer corrected with big eyes. “Not ever that many!”
“Don’t worry Dash,” Scootaloo assured her, “I’ve been really careful! There are only 10 of us right now.”
“Where did the other 30 go?” Twilight asked butting up beside Dash, as if asking a filly where her 30 mouth babies went was the most ordinary question in the world. It was honestly really freaking amazing Twilight just trusted Rainbow that all this stuff had happened. Dash would have never believed Twilight if she came up raving about a filly popping out of another filly’s mouth. Dash and Twilight had both seen a lot of strange things in their life, but this was really something else.
Scootaloo looked at Archer, who looked at Scootaloo and shrugged, then Scootaloo faced Twilight shrugging herself with an awkward smile saying, “They went... back in?”
“Back in where?” Rainbow asked, only to be bowled over by Twilight who stuck her face right up to Scootaloo’s exclaiming,
“You can resorb?!”
Scootaloo looked left and right frantically, saying, “re-what??”
“Reincorporate? Karyosynthesize? Deproduce? Merge?” Twilight shot like bullets.
“Yeah yeah, that last one!” Scootaloo said, sliding back at the force of Twilight’s intensity. Twilight just grabbed her and Archer in her hooves and pushed their rumps together like she could smoosh them together like play dough.
“Show me,” she said hungrily.
Archer squeaked at the nonconsensual rump bumping, and Scootaloo just flailed saying, “No–wait, no I can’t, wait!”
After Dash had defused yet another Twilight situation, Scootaloo explained, “I can’t do it if I’m too full. That apple really tided me over, sorry. I can probably show you in... the morning...” she punctuated her last sentence with a hearty yawn. Archer meanwhile jumped off the table and walked to the corner of the room, just standing there gazing off into the middle distance with an unreadable, but somehow familiar expression on her face.
“How long have we been down here anyway, Twilight?” Dash asked, looking up at the ceiling as if the artifical indoor light up there would give her a clue.
“Oh, it’s only been a couple hours,” Twilight said, walking around to look at Archer, “So come over here and I can tell you about my–”
Dash realized with a shock, “What time is it, Twilight?!” she asked fluttering up alarmedly.
Twilight winced, saying in a guilty tone, “Oh, I guess, I dunno maybe a few hours until midnight?”
“Alright,” said Dash, hovering there with a hoof to face. Now she recognized that expression Archer wore. “It is way too late to be talking about this stuff. We need to get these fillies to bed.”
Twilight dropped her head and sighed. “You’re right,” she said, “I need to check on Spike, make sure he’s not drooling on the comic books again. Then I can get out the spare bed for you ...three.”
“You don’t need to do that for me. I could take them to my house instead?” Dash suggested, landing lightly and swinging a hoof jauntily.
“Oh don’t worry about it Dash, I love helping my friends out!” Twilight smiled, “And besides,” she pointed her hoof upward several times. “The weather out there is really bad for travelling.”
“Eh heh,” Dash looked aside, “Sorry about that. Well I guess we’re going to have a sleepover then, eh Scoots? Arch...er?” It was going to be a Tartarus bucking nightmare to come up with a cute nickname for a name like Archer. Where had they picked that one up anyway? There was Archie, but that had a strange sense of indescribable horror to it, and besides it was the same number of syllables anyway.
“No,” Scootaloo said, firming up her lip. “I can’t.”
“Scootaloo, there is nothing wrong with you,” Dash sighed to the filly. “Yeah it’s weird and... strange and all, but you’re a good pony! You don’t have to push us away. We’re your friends!”
Scootaloo’s pupils softened at that, and she gave an internal shudder, but said, “No it’s... it’s not that.”
“There are two other fillies,” Scootaloo explained, her confident stance faltering when she added, “L-like me. I mean... I sort of made them, on accident.”
“They’re going to be so scared...” came Archer’s voice from below.
Scootaloo actually gave Rainbow an angry glare when she said, “You just... grabbed us like that. They probably don’t think we’re ever coming back.” Dash remembered she did see a third filly who looked just terrified, and felt her ears go down.
“I’m sorry, squirt I just—”
“N-no it’s okay,” Scootaloo said emotionally, “I’m I’m glad you ...did.” She wiped at her eyes, saying, “I just need to go find them, and let them know we’re ...okay.” She didn’t look happy at all when she said, “I have to go stay with them, so I c-can’t stay with... you.”
“Can’t it wait until the morning?” Rainbow demanded, “You know how hard it’s coming down out there!” As if to emphasize her point, thunder rumbled overhead again. Scootaloo shook her head.
It was Archer’s voice who said, “They can’t take care of themselves,” down there right up against Rainbow Dash’s legs. “They need us.”
“Well, why don’t I go instead?” Dash said, extending her wings. “I can get there in 30 seconds flat!”
“But you were the one who grabbed us,” Scootaloo said in a hurt tone, “When you come back alone, and we’re still gone, what are they going to think?”
“This is so bucked up,” Dash said, sniffling despite herself. “You can’t just go out into the rain... back to that, that shack.” Her temper flared up hotly when she heard Twilight start... chuckling.
“What are you laughing at?” Dash said glaring angrily and disbelievingly at Twilight, “You think this is funny?!”
“Well, it’s just, ya know, you can be really clueless sometimes Rainbow Dash,” she said with a slight smirk.
“And you can be a jerk, Twilight,” Rainbow said hotly, wiping at her eyes with a wingfront.
“Seriously Dash,” Twilight said admonishingly, reaching up and tapping her horn with a hoof, as if she didn’t care at all about the well-being of oh.
“...oh.” Rainbow Dash said dumbly, a blank look on her face. She spun around, turning her back to Twilight and closing her eyes, then said, “Twilight could you give Scootaloo a lift back to her place?” With a little lash of her tail.
“I would be happy to, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said sweetly, as she headed immediately across the floor, for the stairs out of the basement. “Let me just check on Spike, and then get my umbrella.” She trotted up the stairs before Scootaloo could ask,
“Why does she have to walk me...?”
“Twilight Sparkle is a unicorn,” Rainbow Dash said to Scootaloo, who was still sitting on the examination table behind her. “She can teleport, remember?”
“...oh yeah.”
The lights were out in Fluttershy’s cottage. The sheeting rainfall of the night covered it in muted colors of blue and grey. The creek travelling past it burbled eagerly as the rivulets of water fed it higher. The forest could dimly be seen in the distance to the right, with the other cottages further away and to the left. Not a creature stirred outside the cottage, all curled up in their burrows, dens and houses, giving the land a timeless quality, like the painting of a frozen moment. It seemed out of place that a sphere of rain would elide itself from existence and a purple unicorn and a small pegasus foal would appear in it with a flash of indescribable light. The two remained dry as the rain immediately struck the surface of a hip mounted umbrella on the unicorn’s body. The soft mossy loam compressed underneath their hooves.
Twilight’s first impulse was to trot forward confidently, but the little orange pegasus next to her swayed uneasily and stumbled a few steps, saying
“Can we not... ever do that... again?”
Twilight huffed a quiet breath, and said to Scootaloo, “You get used to it.” That didn’t nearly describe the complexities behind teleportation of course. Line of sight or long distance, known or unknown destinations, moving every bit of matter aside to make room, the cosmo field about as easy to ride as a bucking bull. Teleportation wasn’t just a spell, it was an art. Twilight had been honing her abilities for years now, since having mastered the spell unexpectedly that one day facing down an angry mob. She was certainly the most skilled teleporter in Ponyville, and possibly all of Equestria, with the possible exception of Twinkleshine the Moon Dancer, but even Twilight couldn’t seem to make it a pleasant experience for anypony who hadn’t developed a tolerance for it.
Twilight waited until Scootaloo had found her legs again, nudging her gently to get her attention. Scootaloo looked up at Twilight and nodded, then started walking forward. She led Twilight into the vaguely populated neighborhood of loners, rejects and apparantly fillies who had the strange ability to reproduce by mouth.
Twilight had so many questions about that, but she was in no position to ask them. Not only was this something of a crisis situation, but Rainbow had beaten it into her head more than once tonight that Twilight was running on fumes and hadn’t been thinking clearly. Too much studying of that blasted spell, too little progress. It made reference to a nonexistent magic field, well, nonexistent to current models at least, and to make a long story short Twilight was going to practically have to cast the thing blind before she could make heads or tails of it.
“Sorry about earlier,” Twilight said to Scootaloo as the filly led her along the path. “It’s just I’m so excited at the possibilities.”
“It’s okay, Miss Twilight,” Scootaloo said. The filly chose not to continue that line of conversation apparantly, letting things descend to the silence of the rainfall again.
“It’s just hard to believe,” Twilight started again, “Even with what I’ve seen, that you can just make a filly on the spot, just like that,”
“I’ve never shown it to anypony before,” Scootaloo said a bit more quietly and less confidently. “It’s really gross. Um... I’m sorry for not showing it to you, Miss Twilight.”
“You know... there once was a pony who was different from everypony else,” Twilight said thoughtfully, “Everyone in Ponyville ran away when she came into town. Everypony hated her without even knowing her. You know what that difference was?”
“What was it?” Scootaloo asked,
“Stripes.”
“Stripes?” Scootaloo paused on her way, looking back at Twilight, the lightning illuminating her features, “You mean Zecora?”
“Oh, you know her?” Twilight asked, surprised.
“Well it’s just Apple Bloom told me about a zebra she met before,” Scootaloo said, walking and talking, “She sounds pretty cool, actually.”
“Actually, Apple Bloom was the only pony who saw past those differences,” Twilight continued, “Even I got fooled into thinking Zecora was dangerous. But Apple Bloom showed us that even with her differences, she was still just a pony like any one of us. That filly taught us all a lesson that day.” Thunder rolled dramatically.
Twilight hesitated, then said “You should consider telling Apple Bloom, Scootaloo. I think she could be more accepting than you might think.” Twilight shouldn’t have said that. She was trying to caution Scootaloo not lead her along. Twilight’s thoughts were going in a direction she wasn’t happy with, imagining Scootaloo trying to show everypony this... strange phenomenon.
Twilight had to stop this time. Scootaloo kept walking a few steps until she passed the umbrella’s sheltering radius and felt the rain start to hit her, then backed up and turned her head.
“That being said,” Twilight clarified carefully, giving Scootaloo the gravest look she could muster, “Every other pony in Ponyville was afraid of Zecora because she had stripes. Stripes. There was nothing wrong with you hiding this from me or from Rainbow Dash. You had no way to know how we would react. You were a very smart filly to do so, considering how some ponies react. I’m just glad I have a chance to prove my trust to you now, but there is nothing wrong with being afraid of ponies being afraid.”
Scootaloo’s eyes were narrowing with fear and, sadly, familiarity at Twilight’s words. Twilight waited for her to say anything, then just bent down and nudged Scootaloo with her nose, until Scootaloo started walking again. Once the filly had begun, Twilight continued in a less foreboding and softer tone, saying,
“The premeditated fear no longer accompanies Zecora every time she comes into town. When ponies learned the truth about her, they didn’t need to be afraid. It was ultimately what ponies didn’t know about her that fueled their fear, rather than what they did. Hiding that truth made ponies fear and hate her, and when she stopped hiding, she found herself no longer feared, or hated.”
“We’re here,” Scootaloo announced dully, interrupting Twilight. They stood before a ramshackle and dilapidated structure, whose contents would have been dark and foreboding were it not for the cheery light of a lantern within. “I should go in first,” Scootaloo said, holding a hoof up as if to stay Twilight’s progress. “When I found them I’ll call you in, so they know it’s safe.”
As Scootaloo trotted in, wiping her hooves off on a scrap of discarded wool, Twilight shook her head at the situation, where fillies have to be so afraid of others that they can’t even trust each other at their own word, and need a physically ritualized method of approach. She walked in enough to fold up her umbrella and wipe her own hooves off on the... impromptu doormat which had clearly seen better days as a sweater, but waited there for Scootaloo’s O.K. As the minutes ticked on, she began to fear irrationally that perhaps there would be no O.K. and Scootaloo had just vanished into thin air.
“O.K. Miss Twilight, you can come in now!” came Scootaloo’s high pitched voice from within the main room. Relieved, Twilight walked in. The layout was just like Fluttershy’s cottage, which should come as no surprise considering where they were located in town. She saw the two fillies and Scootaloo standing together in the centermost part by the light of a gas lantern.
Twilight came into the room as slowly and quietly as possible, but the other two fillies still cowered behind Scootaloo fearfully, who stood in their symbolic defense. At least Twilight hoped it was symbolic. One filly was lemon yellow with a pale blue mane far longer than Scootaloo’s but hopelessly tangled in knots and debris. The other was tomato red with a yellow mane that seemed naturally shorter than Scootaloo’s while still having the characteristic curl. They both had frayed twiggy tails and matted flanks, and needed some serious grooming and care. Scootaloo was, well, more composed and groomed, but the others were just... dissheveled.
“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight said to them in a friendly tone, smiling at the fillies comfortingly as she could manage, “I’m not here to hurt you.”
The one’s expression softened a bit, while the other continued to stare in uncomprehending fear. Scootaloo looked back and forth, standing in between them and Twilight, and suggested, “Why don’t you try picking me up?” She faced Twilight, sitting down and reaching out her front hooves. “That should help convince them,” she said anxiously.
“Well alright, Scootaloo, if you say so,” Twilight agreed cautiously, reaching out with her magic to levitate the filly.
The other fillies scampered back with frightened squeals when Twilight lifted Scootaloo in her magic, so Twilight hurriedly canceled her horn after placing the orange pegasus firmly on her rump. Twilight had forgotten how rare it was that somepony of her ability came around; seems even after all these years, she still had the tendancy to frighten foals without meaning to. Moving unnaturally slowly, Twilight turned her side to the two on the floor so they could see Scootaloo sitting up there, then remained still. They didn’t run away, but they didn’t seem convinced or trusting.
“What are your names?” Twilight asked hopefully.
“That one’s Dizzie, and that one is Bee,” Scootaloo said, pointing at the yellow and red ones respectively. They both softened as Scootaloo spoke, and stood up warily but not fearfully.
“I’m here to learn more about you,” Twilight said addressing the two fillies on the ground, Dizzie and Bee apparently. “How long have you been ex–um, how long have you been out of Scootaloo?”
“A few weeks,” Scootaloo said immediately. The two fillies didn’t bother clarifying. “Dizzie is the oldest,” Scootaloo continued, “And Bee is just a few days... because of Rainbow Dash’s milk um... protein shake caught me without Archer.”
“Do you like milkshakes, Bee?” Twilight asked trying to get a response from the filly.
“She probably does,” said Scootaloo, “We all do, but sometimes it’s different flavors.”
“I was asking Bee, Scootaloo,” Twilight admonished quietly, turning to Bee expectantly.
“Oh, they don’t talk yet,” Scootaloo clarified, making Twilight’s brain go yerrk.
“It takes about a year before they’re ready to be somepony,” Scootaloo continued flippantly. “I never let it get that far though, except with Archer because I was um, lonely and... wanted somepony to talk to.”
“So they’re like babies, in a 21 year old body?” Twilight said, the wheels in her head spinning rapidly as the foals on the floor in front of her continued to silently stare.
“No, they’re like,” Scootaloo paused, wiggling uncertainly against Twilight, “Like a library, with nopony in it,” she decided, “So like, all 21 years are in there, but there’s nopony to check out books. At least that’s what I remember...” she trailed off somewhat reservedly.
“You have their memories?” Twilight asked.
“No,” Scootaloo said fussily, “Yes I mean, yes every time they go in, but what I meant was we were all like that at first.” She paused before adding, “I was like that once,” in a quiet voice.
Twilight had so many questions. So. Many. But now was simply not the time to be asking them. There were 3, no 10 exhausted fillies on her hooves now, and she had left the care of her library in the sole responsibility of Rainbow Dash. Something had to be done. So she just asked, “Can you get them to come close to me?”
“Uh, probably,” Scootaloo said, “Why?”
“I want to try teleporting us all back to the library.”
“Uggh,” Scootaloo grimaced, “That was even worse than nausea. I thought you said you weren’t going to do that again!”
“No, you said I wasn’t going to do that again,” Twilight corrected. “And it’s the best solution I can come up with that doesn’t leave you sleeping on... on that,”
Twilight pointed a hoof at the couch. A spring popped out of it at that moment, vibrating at a skewed angle. That wasn’t the only reason they couldn’t stay here though. When the lightning flashed a second time, Twilight noticed that Scootaloo didn’t even flinch, but the other two fillies looked around fearfully. They were just operating on pure instinct. It would have been fascinating if– and when the thunder rolled they both cried out as one, running for cover in different directions.
If it wasn’t scaring them so badly.
“Please, Scootaloo,” Twilight said, “I’ll be as careful as I can, I promise.”
“Fiiine,” Scootaloo said in unconvincing disgust, jumping down from Twilight and disappearing between the boxes. When she came with Dizzie, pushing her rump to guide her movements, Dizzie looked up fearfully at Twilight first, but then like a switch, was hiding underneath Twilight’s legs. It was a very bizarre experience, but then this whole evening was a very bizarre experience.
Scootaloo was pushing Bee over, who displayed even less fear or recognition than Dizzie. “C’mon Miss Twilight,” Scootaloo said in a harried and somewhat rushed voice, “Just hurry and do it before—” Lightning flashed, making the filly underneath Twilight quiver like a newborn. Scootaloo didn’t clarify, but Twilight thought she had a good idea what she was referring to.
Before the thunder could crash, igniting her horn, Twilight winked them all out. The storm, the rain, the rundown cottage, and even her own body were all gone in a flash, and she was there once again riding the cosmo like a raging serpent, bearing her precious cargo, hurtling toward the idea of her destination. It was the sort of experience she lived for, and had to fight herself as much as the cosmo to keep from diving into it and tapping into the exhilirating depths, just concentrating on keeping herself steady for the timeless time it took to travel these ways.
Twilight couldn’t help but see the result as adorable when they arrived, but she never would admit that out loud, since she had at least a shred of compassion and decency in her. Between the teleportation sickness and the sudden bright light of the library’s interior, Dizzie was stumbling around like a, well a newborn foal, and the ketchup and mustard Bee just fell on her side when she tried to walk, and lay there moving her legs, whining distressedly. Scootaloo seemed better off, hardly wobbling at all, so Twilight had to assume that she nailed the teleport this time, and those fillies were just... really sensitive. They probably had nothing in the sense of mental defenses.
“I’m sorry Scootaloo,” she said to the orange filly, “I did my best, honest. It’s over now. No more teleporting.”
Scootaloo didn’t answer her or look her way, just went over and helped Bee up onto her hooves.
Twilight started for the storage/guest room, looking back and asking Scootaloo, “You can um, watch these two, please? Get them settled? The thunder shouldn’t be as bad in here.”
“Yeah I got it, Miss Twilight,” Scootaloo said with half her attention. The other two weren’t exploring or looking around curiously. Dizzie was just sitting there looking stunned, and Bee just... standing there.
“Good,” said Twilight, “Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go rescue Rainbow Dash.”
To Rainbow Dash’s credit, she did get the bed out successfully. Sure that one final shove had gotten Dash’s posterior firmly wedged into the drawer the bed came out of, with her hind hooves up by her ears, but she did get it out! Currently she and Archer were playing a little game called get me out of this bucking thing, where Archer took Rainbow Dash’s hooves in her own, and Rainbow said, “On three! One, two, three!” Then Archer pulled with all her might, and if she had been just a little bit stronger she might have been able to bend cardboard. Then Dash started wiggling again, only getting herself further ensconced as the door to the drawer had hooked up against her tail base. It was a really fun game that they were playing just for fun because it did buck all to get her out of there.
“Okay, Rainbow Dash,” came Twilight’s voice from the other room as she trotted into the guest room. “What did you do this—”
“...”
“...”
“...yo.”
SheisyourbestfrienddonotkillherSheisyourbestfrienddonotkillherSheisyourbestfrienddonotkillher. “Twilight, could you please stop laughing for a minute, and get me out of here? No? OK I’m just gonna sit here then, just chilling around. This is just the sort of thing I like to do, you know? Just sitting here with my butt stuck in your Nightmare damned monster drawer. Twilight, come on! Twilight!”
Eventually, way, way longer than any real friend would have taken, Twilight managed to stand on her hooves stably enough to walk over to Rainbow Dash. Dash figured this was going to take some serious magic to get her out. No way she could be teleported with her butt stuck like this, without taking a piece of the building with her. Some sort of lubrication spell maybe, like the kind Rainbow read about in that one magazine. Maybe Twilight was going to wave her horn and make her tail disappear? Just bucking do something!
So after taking a look, Twilight apparantly noticed that since the door was a flap that hinged inside and down, she could reach in there and push on it with her hoof to lift it above Rainbow Dash’s tail base. Then Archer suddenly gained super strength that she totally had been holding back this whole time and easily slid Rainbow Dash out of the narrow, vaguely bed sized cavity.
With that moment never spoken of again for the rest of time, Rainbow Dash was ready to appraise the situation.
“So, where’s Scootaloo?” she asked, casually rubbing at her sore tail base, trying not to sound too worried. “You didn’t leave her there, did you? What about the other mouth uh, mouth fillies?”
“Oh they’re amazing!” Twilight said brightly, “They’re a near tabula rasa, if not for yet another of Scootaloo’s somewhat troubling revelations I would never have known they weren’t. It’s fascinating to see fillies in such a state. I wonder what their symbolic processing capabilities are? I wonder if they can learn!” She was rubbing her hooves together entirely too gleefully for Rainbow Dash’s sake.
“Right...” Dash said, “Uh, so they are here, right?”
“Yes they’re just in the other room,” Twilight answered, levitating several bedsheets, pillows and pillowcases and thick blankets around her in a silent storm of bedmaking. “Why don’t you and Archer go check on them?”
Archer immediately perked up at the news and cantered towards the front of the library. “Hey wait up, kid,” Dash said to the blue filly, walking with Archer through the library proper.
There was a lot of room in here. The main library separated the guest room from the lobby, with the actual bedroom being upstairs. There were a couple of side passages that led to more obscure books that ponies rarely looked up, or that’s as near as Rainbow could tell that those wings contained, according to Twilight Sparkle’s weird shelving system. Twilight couldn’t just put it in alphabetical order, oh no, but to her credit Twilight was always willing to dig something out, if a pony couldn’t find it so Rainbow had to admit it wasn’t that bad. Dash supposed it would have been a pain if Twilight had gone with alphabetical order and put the books under D off in the west wing, instead of keeping them right up front for Rainbow Dash to snatch up as soon as the newest one arrived.
Archer walked with Rainbow, the filly’s hooves tapping a lot faster on the wood floor to keep up with Rainbow’s more sedate pace. Well, as sedate as Rainbow Dash ever got. She sure wasn’t going to linger here long. She had a squirt to catch, and apparantly two new fillies to meet. That was sort of worrying Rainbow Dash into hesitating though, because she wasn’t kidding about not being able to adopt the whole orphanage. Scootaloo was one thing, but a second filly would totally bust her budget, and four? Maybe uh... she didn’t want to say it, but maybe the orphanage could work something out. That’d mean the rest of the town knowing, though, and Rainbow Dash didn’t want to see a repeat of the Cutie Pox scare.
The lobby of the library was a lot brighter than the dim lighting of the guest room in the back. It gave Rainbow Dash a good look at the three fillies who sat there, only one of them familiar. The fillies weren’t running around or hyperactive or anything, just laying together. This evening even had Rainbow Dash feeling tuckered out, so she could only imagine what a couple fillies were going through. She would have thought they were asleep, cuddled together in the middle of the lobby floor, but she could tell that Scootaloo clearly wasn’t asleep.
With Scootaloo’s back turned, Rainbow couldn’t see her face, but she could see that of the other two fillies. Scootaloo was cradling the other two one on either side, in her hooves and in her lap. Their eyes were closed, and their breathing slow. Looking at little Scootaloo, it struck Dash how much Scootaloo had to go through just to get a semi-normal life. These were her fillies. They really did look kind of like her babies, the way she was holding them, even if they were the same size as her. How do you feel normal, when you’re dealing with that? What really struck Dash though was something she had never seen Scootaloo do before. Scootaloo was singing to them.
No, not singing. Every pony had seen Scoots trying to sing before, back at that disaster of a talent show. Here she wasn’t singing with words, though. She just held the two of them close to her chest and sang a soft wordless melody. Her normal raspy voice, so like Dash’s, had slid into a rounder more vibrant tone. Just a melodic crooning that didn’t seem to have any direction or meter. It was mesmerizing, and hauntingly beautiful in a way. It—
It didn’t sound like a pony.